Thoughts on TABOR...

Several of our Republicans in the WI Senate and Assembly have said that it is the Colorado model that they are basing TABOR on. What does that mean? Here are excerpts from an interview with the 'father' of Colorado TABOR, Douglas Bruce:

First off, Bruce says, the state should adopt a statewide voucher program for public schools and simultaneously cut state aid to education. How much? For starters, it could be an amount equal to the difference between per-pupil spending now (about $8,000) and the $3,000 annual voucher level being talked about by voucher advocates.

Next in line for the budget ax would be higher education. I always thought most people thought higher education is a good thing. Going to college not only helps one land a better-paying job, it might even help with appreciating life more, expanding minds and all that stuff.

To Bruce, however, the state's colleges and universities collectively are a fiscal drain down which state taxpayers have poured millions and millions of dollars for nothing.

"As a matter of simple morality, why should Jose Fernandez or Joe Johnson, who are flipping burgers or mopping up floors, pay higher taxes so that Cecil Candyass can go to Boulder for four, five, six or eight years?"

Bruce urges dramatic increases in college and university tuition so that the people who insist on getting an education pay the full cost of it themselves.

Next, there's Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides medical care for the poor. Bruce would eliminate it. He argues there is no federal requirement to have the program, so we shouldn't.

I asked Bruce how hospitals should respond when poor people without insurance present themselves at emergency rooms.

"If you don't have the money, you don't get the service."

So, if you agree with Bruce's vision of a Colorado where everyone goes to private school, there's no state-subsidized colleges and universities and poor people without health insurance go without medical care — be happy.

Bruce and the right-wing Republicans in the Legislature carrying his ideological water are gonna make it happen — eventually.

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2003/03/10/editorial1.html

This is why me must win in the next elections - do you want this to be the vision of Wisconsin?

Shaivo was "Irreverable"

"Her brain was profoundly atrophied," Jon Thogmartin, medical examiner for Florida's Pinellas-Pasco County, told a press conference. "There was massive neuronal loss, or death. This was irreversible and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

“The brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain," he added.

Thogmartin added that Terri Schiavo had been blinded by the injury and that all evidence indicated that she could not have survived without a feeding tube.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8225637/

And yet, on the Senate floor Frist felt that "based on a review of the video footage, which I have spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office" she could recover.

What a joke.

Good Start, Joe... Keep at 'Em:

DPW: New Study Shows GOP Photo ID Plans Would Disenfranchise Over 200,000 Seniors, Women, Minorities and the Young

6/14/2005

MADISON – Joe Wineke, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, released the following statement today on a new UW-Milwaukee study on the driver’s license status of Wisconsin voters:

“This study shows that what Democrats have been saying all along is true. The restrictive photo ID measure being pushed by Republicans would disenfranchise 100,000 Wisconsin seniors, and potentially 100,000 more Wisconsin citizens without driver’s licenses – primarily women, minorities, and the disabled.“

“The only other state in the country with this kind of restriction is South Carolina – a state that barely turned out 50 percent of its voters in the 2004 November election, while Wisconsin turned out 75 percent. We ranked at the top in voter turnout; they ranked at the bottom. South Carolina is definitely not the model we should follow.”

“More importantly, this study confirms the true agenda of the Republican Party. Republicans are not interested in election reform; they are interested in stacking the elections in their favor and turning away voters like the elderly, women, African Americans, Hispanics, and young people who traditionally vote Democratic. The study also shows that the measure would have a disproportional effect on Milwaukee County. The GOP’s agenda clearly isn’t about cleaning up elections, it’s about crass politics, plain and simple.”

“Instead of trying to disenfranchise legitimate voters, we need to clean up our election process so only valid votes are counted. Democrats believe in tougher identification at the polls to prevent fraud, but not punitive restrictions that would disenfranchise individuals who have a constitutional right to vote. Governor Doyle has laid out a comprehensive package that would improve the way our elections are conducted top to bottom. Republicans should be focused on working with the Governor to put those reforms in place, instead of attempting to construct new obstacles to voting.”

What If Watergate Happened Today

Here are excerpts from Johnathan Alter:

From a distance, Watergate seems like a partisan affair. But that's because we tend to look at it nowadays through red- and blue-tinted glasses. In truth, President Nixon was forced to resign in 1974 by Republicans in Congress like Barry Goldwater, who realized from the so-called smoking-gun tape that he was a crook. This was after the Supreme Court—led by a Nixon appointee—unanimously ruled against him in the tapes case.

But imagine if Nixon were president in this era.

... former Nixon media adviser Roger Ailes banned the word "Watergate" from Fox News's coverage and went with the logo "Assault on the Presidency" instead.

... as in the Valerie Plame case, the Justice Department subpoenaed Woodward and Bernstein to testify before the grand jury about their sources. When they declined, they were jailed for 18 months on contempt charges.

... W. Mark Felt, held a press conference to air complaints that the White House and his own boss were impeding the FBI probe. Of course it was only a one-day story, with Ann Coulter predictably screaming that Felt was a "traitor." Rush Limbaugh dubbed Felt "Special Agent Sour Grapes" because he'd been passed over for the top FBI job. Within hours, the media had moved on to the tale of a runaway bride.

... I hoped that the Nixon tapes might bring some justice. But soon the tapes just became more fodder for those legal shows on cable. The Supreme Court split 5-4, along largely partisan lines, as it did in Bush vs. Gore. That allowed Nixon to keep control of the tapes. When he burned them, the bipartisan outcry you would have heard in the old days over destruction of evidence was muffled by a ferocious counterattack from the GOP's legion of spinners. A group calling itself "Watergate Burglars for Truth" set up a 527 to argue that Bill Clinton and other Democratic presidents had ordered more black-bag jobs than Nixon.

... Nixon gave a TV interview to the British journalist David Frost in which he said, "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." This explained why he felt comfortable approving the break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Ken Duberstein and a few other principled Republicans weighed in that Nixon was bad news, but they were drowned out by former aides like Pat Buchanan and G. Gordon Liddy, who wanted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. When "Firebombing Brookings: Good Idea or Not?" became the "Question of the Day" on MSNBC, Liddy's radio show got a nice ratings boost.

Read it all here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8101512/site/newsweek/page/2/

Give Petri Credit When He Gets It Right.....

A new attempt at election reform would force poll workers to produce a paper confirmation for each person casting a machine ballot. "This is about ensuring that every vote counts and is counted," said Patrick Eddington, press secretary to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat.
Each of the nation's last two presidential elections has resulted in Democratic allegations that Republicans manipulated the voting in key states - Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004.
Holt's bill, would amend the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, which does not currently require paper verification of a person's vote.
"This bill has a lot of bi-partisan support," Eddington told Cybercast News Service. Actually, the bill has 132 Democratic and only 3 Republican co-sponsors (Rep. Thomas Petri of Wisconsin, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia and Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma)

http://www.townhall.com/news/politics/200506/POL20050613a.shtml

There has been too many questions about voting over the last few years. Unlike State Republican efforts to block voters, this seems to ensure ALL votes get counted. Rep. Petri sould be congratulated for his support.

Don't worry - there is still plenty to disagree with him on.....

Do something about the Bush war - sign the petition:

When he gets his 250,000 signature, he will deliver it to the White House.

Go here:

http://www.johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={20F67A89-DDC3-422B-BD18-4D4AAC8F7D6E}

Here is the link to the document mentioned below:

Cabinet Office paper: Conditions for military action
The paper, produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002, is incomplete because the last page is missing. The following is a transcript rather than the original document in order to protect the source.
PERSONAL SECRET UK EYES ONLY
NI_MPU('middle');
IRAQ: CONDITIONS FOR MILITARY ACTION (A Note by Officials)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758,00.html

And there's more....

From the Sunday Times - Britan

Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal

This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.

“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.

Here's the link to the 'Downing Street Memo' in the Northwestern

Reichman Gets It Right....

It is more than a little embarrassing that at the same time the national press revels in the Watergate exploits of Woodward, Bernstein and Deep Throat, it is collectively keeping the country in the dark about the “Downing Street memo.”

If you haven’t heard about the “Downing Street memo,” don’t feel bad. Most Americans have not either, due to the absence of reporting by the nation’s major news organizations.

...

The facts are hard to dispute. The nation’s major newspapers, The Washington Post, the New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times have done scant reporting on the memo. The New York Times has published two stories on the memo and the other three newspapers have run one story each, none on their front pages. The coverage has largely been on the existence of the memo with no investigative reporting on the contents of the memo.

...

The lack of national coverage of the memo is more likely a sign that the national media has been battered into submission by the constant pummeling from an administration that is relentless with its conservative agenda due to its re-election and stranglehold on Congress. It also may be a sign that the media, in search of readers and ratings, has stooped to pandering to news consumers who are more easily captivated by a missing 18-year-old girl in Aruba or the Michael Jackson trial than complex international issues.

Either way, it is difficult to be proud of our industry today, Deep Throat not withstanding.

http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/news/columns/stories/columns_21355003.shtml

Great job Mr. Rieckman!!!

Would this have been legal under concealed carry????

Two arrested during graduation
Custodian alerts police to armed men

An alert custodian may have helped avert a tragedy during graduation exercises at Markesan High School June 3.

Officers found a gun, knives, machetes, a sword and ammunition on the two men and in their vehicle after they were apprehended.

George W. Bush’s approval rating is now a full twenty points lower than Bill Clinton’s was on the day he was impeached.

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll, here, shows 52 percent of Americans disapprove of the job President Bush is doing overall, reports ABC News' Polling director Gary Langer — the most in more than 75 ABC/Post polls since his presidency began. His approval rating is 48 percent.

Bush's Iraq approval ratings haven't fared much better: 41 percent said they approve of the job the President is doing in Iraq, while 58 percent disapprove — matching his career-high Iraq disapproval mark.

Class Warfare in America...

The great Bob Herbert on who's winning - an article aptly titled "the Mobility Myth":

Consider, for example, two separate eras in the lifetime of the baby-boom generation. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent between 1990 and 2002, Mr. Johnston wrote, each taxpayer in that top bracket brought in an extra $18,000.

"Under the Bush tax cuts, the 400 taxpayers with the highest incomes - a minimum of $87 million in 2000, the last year for which the government will release such data - now pay income, Medicare and Social Security taxes amounting to virtually the same percentage of their incomes as people making $50,000 to $75,000. Those earning more than $10 million a year now pay a lesser share of their income in these taxes than those making $100,000 to $200,000."

The privileged classes, with the Bush administration's iron cloak of protection, avoid their fair share of taxes, are reluctant to pay an honest dollar for an honest day's work (the federal minimum wage is still a scandalous $5.15 an hour), refuse to fight in their nation's wars, and laugh all the way to their yachts.

Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Funds for Healthcare

This is a huge travesty- the largest company in the world relies on our tax money to provide healthcare for its underpaid employees.

We need to change this ASAP.

Here are some recent statements.

From SEIU:

SEIU: Wal-Mart Health Care Welfare Must End
6/1/2005
Contact: Robert Kraig (414) 322-5324

Madison: Today SEIU members will join other allies at the State Capitol for a noon rally to urge lawmakers to stop Wisconsin taxpayers from having to subsidize Wal-Mart’s health care. Wisconsin's tax-supported health care programs for the working poor spend millions of dollars each year covering the health costs of the most profitable company in the world. Faced with unavailable or unaffordable health coverage at Wal-Mart, workers are turning to taxpayer-funded healthcare programs such as BadgerCare and other Medicaid programs. This cost shift to Wisconsin taxpayers comes at a time when Wisconsin’s Medicaid program is facing a serious budget crisis.

“U.S. taxpayers pay $1.5 billion subsidizing Wal-Mart Medicaid costs,” commented Dian Palmer, RN, President of SEIU Wisconsin State Council. “It is wrong for Wal-Mart to force taxpayers to pony up 15% of their $10 billion in annual profits through subsidized health care,” continued Palmer. “Wisconsin taxpayers must no longer be forced to provide health care welfare for Wal-Mart.”

Wisconsin taxpayers are subsidizing health insurance for 3,765 people who are Wal-Mart employees or the spouses and children of Wal-Mart employees. 1,252 Wal-Mart employees are participants in BadgerCare, the state’s health insurance program for low-income working families. At Wal-Mart’s recent Media Day on April 5th, CEO Leo Scot actually said, ‘In some states, the public program may actually be a better value.’ Responding to these comments Palmer stated, “Badgercare offers excellent health coverage at a very low cost and we’re happy Wal-Mart recognizes it as the bargain it is. But surely Wal-Mart doesn’t believe that just because something is a god value that you get to just walk out the door with it.”

The cost to taxpayers for the coverage provided to Wal-Mart’s Medicaid participants is estimated at $4.75 million, with the State of Wisconsin covering $1.8 million of that amount.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart has a long history of abusing taxpayers. In June 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Wal-Mart had agreed to pay $2,866,904 to settle allegations that the company had submitted false prescription claims to federal health insurance programs such as Medicaid. The company’s pharmacies were alleged to have dispensed partial or “short” prescriptions due to insufficient stock, while it billed the government programs for the full quantities.

http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=37910

From Sen. Dave Hansen:

Sen. Hansen: Calls on Wal-Mart to Pay its Fair Share for Health Care

6/1/2005
Contact: Sen. Hansen, 608-266-5670

(Madison)— Today, state Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) joined fellow legislators and citizen and labor groups in calling for Wal-Mart to provide decent health insurance benefits to its employees or reimburse the state for Medical Assistance costs used to offer coverage to its employees and their families.

“Wal-Mart is taking advantage of Wisconsin taxpayers by setting up employment benefit plans that take full advantage of state health care programs like Badgercare, despite the fact that paying the $2-3 million a year to provide coverage to its employees would be about as noticeable to them as a gnat is to an elephant,” said Hansen.

A recent Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article revealed that Wal-Mart employs 809 individuals who are enrolled in the BadgerCare program. This reliance on the state health insurance program for low-income residents costs Wisconsin taxpayers approximately $2.7 million a year.

“Wal-Mart has plenty of resources to provide health care to its employees, or at the very least reimburse the state for its employees’ use of BadgerCare,” said Hansen. “There is nothing novel about requiring a contribution to health care costs. This is something that’s required of nearly all Wisconsin workers, and I don’t think that it’s too much to ask of Wal-Mart.”

A number of bills authored by legislative Democrats will soon be introduced in both houses of the state legislature to address this issue.

http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=37930

This is fake, but relevant....

A political action group is applying pressure on the Kansas State Board of Education to ban any and all references to the 20th century from school textbooks, a spokesman for the group confirmed today.

"These textbooks state unequivocally that the 20th century occurred, as if that were a proven historic fact," said Gordon Lavalier, the group's leader and spokesman. "The simple truth is, the 20th century is and has always been nothing but a theory."

If the group is successful, starting in the fall of 2005, Kansas students would be taught from newly reconstituted history books that end with the year 1899.

Among students at Kansas City's John F. Kennedy High School, which the group has demanded be renamed after William Jennings Bryan, reaction to the ban on the 20th century was mixed.

Read it all here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7966101/site/newsweek/

It's Finally Been Said...

President Bush and those around him lied, and the rest of us let them. Harsh? Yes. True? Also yes.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5427823.html

Newsweek Should Have Held It's Ground

Click on the title for Molly Ivins going through all of the previous reporting backing the Newsweek story:

March 17, 2004, when the Independent of London interviewed the first British citizen released from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner said he had been physically beaten but did not consider that as bad as the psychological torture, which he described extensively. Jamal al-Harith, a computer programmer from Manchester, said 70 percent of the inmates had gone on a hunger strike after a guard kicked a copy of the Koran. The strike was ended by force-feeding.

Then came the report, widely covered in American media last December, by the International Red Cross concerning torture at Gitmo. I wrote at the time: "In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners?

Dec. 30, 2004, "Released Moroccan Guantanamo Detainee Tells Islamist Paper of His Ordeal," reported the Financial Times. "They watched you each time you went to the toilet; the American soldiers used to tear up copies of Koran and throw them in the toilet. ..." said the released prisoner.

Jan. 9, 2005, Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Sunday Times of London, said: "We now know a great deal about what has gone on in U.S. detention facilities under the Bush administration. Several government and Red Cross reports detail the way many detainees have been treated. We know for certain that the United States has tortured five inmates to death. We know that 23 others have died in U.S. custody under suspicious circumstances. We know that torture has been practiced by almost every branch of the U.S. military in sites all over the world -- from Abu Ghraib to Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

"We know that no incidents of abuse have been reported in regular internment facilities and that hundreds have occurred in prisons geared to getting intelligence. We know that thousands of men, women and children were grabbed almost at random from their homes in Baghdad, taken to Saddam's former torture palace and subjected to abuse, murder, beatings, semi-crucifixions and rape.

"All of this is detailed in the official reports. What has been perpetrated in secret prisons to 'ghost detainees' hidden from Red Cross inspection, we do not know. We may never know.

"This is America? While White House lawyers were arguing about what separates torture from legitimate 'coercive interrogation techniques,' the following was taking place: Prisoners were hanged for hours or days from bars or doors in semi-crucifixions; they were repeatedly beaten unconscious, woken and then beaten again for days on end; they were sodomized; they were urinated on, kicked in the head, had their ribs broken, and were subjected to electric shocks.

"Some Muslims had pork or alcohol forced down their throats; they had tape placed over their mouths for reciting the Koran; many Muslims were forced to be naked in front of each other, members of the opposite sex and sometimes their own families. It was routine for the abuses to be photographed in order to threaten the showing of the humiliating footage to family members."

The New York Times reported on May 1 on the same investigation Newsweek was writing about and interviewed a released Kuwaiti, who spoke of three major hunger strikes, one of them touched off by "guards' handling copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stomped on. A senior officer delivered an apology over the camp's loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer's apology. A former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans."


Is this your America? Make the change.

Conan on the future of TV...

Just a funny read

Gannet Gets It Right!!!

Unfortunately, it isn't the Northwestern....

Doyle right to veto voter IDs

Republican lawmakers promoted the plan as a deterrent to illegal voting, using not-too-subtle scare tactics. Without the law, they said, a convicted felon's vote could cancel out your vote. An undocumented worker - illegal alien in their parlance - could have a say in state government.

It reminded one of the infamous Willie Horton ads used to attack Mike Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election - felons and minorities threatening real Americans.

http://www.wisinfo.com/newsherald/mnhopinion/283347649739319.shtml

Hurray for Rep. Stark

A message from Congressman Pete Stark:

STARK STATEMENT ON THE ADMINISTRATION’S MOST RECENT HYPOCRISY

WASHINGTON, DC – Today U.S. Representative Pete Stark entered into the record the following statement regarding the Administration’s recent chastising of Newsweek magazine:

Mr. Speaker, the pot is calling the kettle black. The Administration is chastising Newsweek magazine for a story containing a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same Administration that lied to the Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war. The same Administration responsible for the death of over 1,500 American servicemen and women and countless Iraqi civilians; the same Administration which shields its highest officials from responsibility for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

Under those circumstances, how can the Bush Administration, with a straight face, denounce a journalist for not checking all the facts before going public with a story?

Of course, Newsweek should have checked the facts more diligently before publishing their article. They made a big mistake. But, Mr. Speaker, we must keep this incident in perspective. Newsweek did make a mistake, but they had the dignity and honor to own up to it.

Unfortunately, I doubt the Bush Administration is capable of displaying such honesty. Instead, the Bush Administration focuses on public relations tactics to divert attention from their own incompetence and fabrications rather than focusing their energies on creating a plan to get our troops out of Iraq.

The hypocrisy of this Administration is astonishing and this most recent episode is, unfortunately, merely one example of many. Just yesterday Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said in reference to the Newsweek article, “People lost their lives. People are dead. People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be very careful about what they do." I couldn’t agree more. People should be very careful about what they say and do; President Bush and his Cabinet, most of all.

Mr. Speaker, accountability and power cannot be separated. If the President accepts the duties and responsibilities of his office he must do exactly what he is asking Newsweek to do: he needs to tell Americans the truth about his own indiscretions in this tragic war.

The Vegitarian Steakhouse.....

Stacie Rosenzweig (of the Vast Dairy State Conspiracy) has a great guestblog on Fighting Bob.

You’ve had a long day at work, so why don’t you and your partner head on over to your favorite neighborhood restaurant for a casual dinner out? How’s a burger, fries, and a bottle of Milwaukee’s finest sound? Oh, but hold on – the line cook has a personal moral objection to preparing animal products, the waiter says he can’t ethically serve someone who appears to be packing a few extra pounds a fatty meal like that, and the bartender reports he has a religious objection to dispensing alcohol. You resign yourself to a salad and water.

Read it all here:

http://www.fightingbob.com/guestblog.cfm?PostID=1237

Quote of the day:

"You sort of see these recurring themes where a democracy turns itself into a dictatorship, and it always seems to happen kind of in the same way, with the same kinds of issues, and threats from the outside, needing more control. A democratic body, a senate, not being able to function properly because everybody's squabbling, there's corruption."

George Lucas - talking about the new Star Wars.....

Says it all...

about the transportation budget.

Click Here for the Debate for the DPW's Future

The Rammelt/Wineke debate audio -

WindowsMedia:
http://www.democracyforwisconsin.com/images2/debate_5_11_05.wma

MP3:
http://www.democracyforwisconsin.com/images2/debate_5_11_05_med.mp3

Don't Believe the Hype...

American Transmission Company has hired Wood Communications Group in Madison to put together a campaign to sell the public on the benefits of a transmission line that will permanently change the lives of northern Wisconsin residents and their environment. According to CUB, the Wood Communications Group led the failed public relations effort to build support for the Exxon mine on the headwaters of the Wolf River.
"The slick hucksters who failed to sell Wisconsin residents on a mine on the headwaters of the Wolf River have been hired by the American Transmission Company to put a happy face on the Arrowhead Transmission line," noted Hiniker.
The Wood firm put together a biased poll that claims northerners are evenly split on whether they support or oppose the line. According to CUB, the questions were slanted in a way to encourage responses in favor of the transmission line. Further, according to CUB, many of those contacted by the pollster refused to answer poll questions because they thought the questions were biased – affecting the outcome of the poll.
"The ATC poll is worthless for gauging public opinion – its only purpose was to issue a press release to promote the myth that many people in the north support the construction of the line," said Hiniker.

Why do I mention this? Because Wood Communications are the people that recently publiched the poll inticating that 80% of Wisconsinites are for the Voter ID legislation.

Once again, we are being manipulated - learn all the facts before you make a decision.

And they want to cut education in Wisconsin...

...and start teaching "intelligent design" in Nebraska.

On April 7, CNET News.com reported the following: "The University of Illinois tied for 17th place in the world finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest. ...

"That's the lowest ranking for the top-performing U.S. school in the 29-year history of the competition. Shanghai Jiao Tong University of China took top honors this year, followed by Moscow State University and the St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. Those results continued a gradual ascendance of Asian and East European schools during the past decade or so. A U.S. school hasn't won the world championship since 1997, when students at Harvey Mudd College achieved the honor. 'The U.S. used to dominate these kinds of programming Olympics,' said David Patterson, president of the Association for Computing Machinery and a computer science professor at the University of California at Berkeley. 'Now we're sort of falling behind.' "

Earlier this week, a special report on the Indiana University High School Survey of Student Engagement, which covered 90,000 high school students in 26 states, was published. The study noted that 18 percent of college-track seniors did not take a math course in their last year in high school - and that "more than a fifth (22 percent) of first-year college students require remediation in math."

We MUST change our educational priorities if we want to compete.

Who's Really in Charge?

Bush was never informed of the plane that was inside the White House's airspace even though (questions from the press pool - I am not including the answers, because they really didnt give any....):

Q: Scott, yesterday the White House was on red alert, was evacuated. The first lady and Nancy Reagan were taken to a secure location. The Vice President was evacuated from the grounds. The Capitol building was evacuated. The continuity of government plan was initiated. And yet the president wasn't told of yesterday's events until after he finished his bike ride, about 36 minutes after the all-clear had been sent. Is he satisfied with the fact that he wasn't notified about this?

Q: The fact that the president wasn't in danger is one aspect of this. But he's also the commander in chief. There was a military operation underway. Other people were in contact with the White House. Shouldn't the commander in chief have been notified of what was going on?

Q: Even on a personal level, did nobody here at the White House think that calling the president to say, by the way, your wife has been evacuated from the White House, we just want to let you know everything is OK?

Q: I think there's a disconnect here because, I mean, yesterday you had more than 30,000 people who were evacuated, you had millions of people who were watching this on television, and there was a sense at some point -- it was a short window, a 15-minute window, but there was a sense of confusion among some on the streets. There was a sense of fear. And people are wondering was this not a moment for the president to exercise some leadership, some guidance during that period of time?

Q: And those protocols are OK with the president despite the fact that his wife was in a situation where she might have been endangered?

Q: Scott, to follow on the same line of questioning, if there is a possibility that a plane may have to be shot down over Washington, doesn't the President want to be involved in that type of decision?

Q: And wasn't there a possibility that a plane headed for the White House, that this was the leading edge of some broader attack, isn't the president concerned that maybe he should have been alerted to the fact that this could have been the beginning of a general attack?

Q: How did they know -- how did they know this plane wasn't laden with WMD or some other type of weapons like that? Did they get reassurances from the pilot? Or how did they know that?

Q So if it was assessed that there was no hostile intent on the part of this aircraft, can you tell us why 30,000 people -- 35,000 people were told to run for their lives?

Q: Right, but there seems to be so many disconnects here. You've got a plane that was assessed as not being a threat, you've got 35,000 people evacuated, you've got a person who you claim is a hands-on commander in chief who is left to go ride his bicycle through the rural wildlands of Maryland while his wife is in some secure location somewhere, it's just not adding up.

An Email I Recieved from DFA

Dear Supporter,
Whatever happened to good corporate citizenship?

In America today, a business you might know pays such poor wages its workers have to turn to taxpayers to pay for their health care. The same firm has made China, a totalitarian dictatorship that holds wages down by outlawing unions, its supplier of choice -- the source of 70 percent of its inventory.

And the family that owns this company and has become wildly wealthy?

They make sure to invest their money in the Republican Party -- where they know their investment will pay off with tax cuts for the richest few.

What company is this? Wal-Mart -- the largest, richest corporation in the world.

Major organizations we work with -- groups such as the Service Employees International Union, and the United Food and Commercial Workers -- believe America's largest corporation should do better. To make that happen, they've launched a massive campaign to show Americans the massive scale of Wal-Mart's irresponsibility.

But those groups need allies. Should we join the fight? The choice is yours:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/walmartvote

Some competitors of Wal-Mart know the value of doing well by doing good. They pay living wages. They offer good benefits. And they earn steady profits -- in part because they attract, and hold onto, high-quality workers. These companies have helped make America the wealthiest nation in the world and they sustain our prosperity.

Wal-Mart takes a radically different approach. For it, every penny is profit -- it fights for every dollar, no matter how it gets it. The result? You pay to make Wal-Mart rich -- through tax benefits and infrastructure bestowed by state and local governments -- even if you never shop there.

Take Georgia, a state where Wal-Mart ranks as the largest private employer. In 2002, state officials there figured out that Wal-Mart employees had some 10,000 children on the rolls of PeachCare, the state's child health care program. No other company's employees had even
a thousand children on the rolls -- but Wal-Mart had no qualms about dumping its costs onto Georgia taxpayers.

Wal-Mart used to make a point of keeping jobs in the United States by buying American. Today, though, the company single-handedly accounts for nearly 10 percent of all Chinese goods sold in the United States.

Wal-Mart keeps prices low by stocking as much as 70 percent of its products from Chinese suppliers -- suppliers who pay wages kept low by a dictatorial government.

Those policies helped Wal-Mart's owners, the Walton family, build a fortune worth tens of billions. That money makes the company a major force in Washington. And the family uses its wealth to bankroll the radical right -- it spent millions last year to elect candidates devoted
to eliminating the estate tax, which affects only the wealthiest of the wealthy. Wal-Mart wealth is also behind Progress for America -- a Republican front group the Waltons have financed to the tune of millions of dollars.

America needs better corporate citizens, and Wal-Mart --the largest company in the world -- has the resources to stand on its own instead of exploiting people overseas and piggybacking on American taxpayers and working families. But making it live up to its responsibilities poses a huge challenge -- because taking on Wal-Mart means going up against the biggest corporation on Earth.

With an undertaking that massive, we need everyone on board. So you make the call:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/walmartvote

We know that America works best when we honor those who work hard and
play by the rules.

It's time to decide: shouldn't we teach Wal-Mart to do the same?

Sincerely,
Tom Hughes
Executive Director, Democracy for America

P.S. -- Please forward this message to anyone you know who might be
interested in the issue.

They Get It in Vermont....

It is not in anybody’s interest - either the Progressives or Democrats - to have Republicans elected to the Congress, given what President Bush and Tom Delay are doing to this country.”

Splitting the vote works against us all - we need to work together.

More on the meaning of Liberalism

Also from Altercation:

liberals understand that our individual happiness is considerably contingent upon the happiness of others in our society. Poor health and poverty tend to constrict happiness. Thus, the amelioration of these conditions among my neighbors, writ large, increases the chance of my own happiness